1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to business insurance policy analysis. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method, system, and computer program for conducting an insurance policy coverage analysis.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
When establishing and operating a business, selecting appropriate insurance coverage is a necessity. However, the multitude of differing types of business insurance policies can make the selection task quite overwhelming. For instance, a business can purchase policies for its property, equipment, inventory, and autos. Also available is coverage for crime, financial losses, workers compensation, pollution, etc. When the various coverage amounts and deductibles for each type of policy are added to the selection process, the task becomes even more daunting.
Insurance salesmen are the first means for making sense of the various types of insurance policies. The salesman must analyze the myriad of insurance policies and provide a business owner with a summary of the business' current coverage and provide a recommendation of any additional coverage. However, even for a trained insurance professional this task can be exceedingly difficult since it requires a significant amount of time to analyze and cross-reference the multiple policies. Errors in the result are easily introduced by such a lengthy manual analysis. Moreover, if the salesman is attempting to present multiple coverage scenarios to a business owner, the time required for the additional analysis further complicates the process.
While the insurance professional might understand and make sense of the morass of policies, the layperson business owner likely cannot. Business owners tend to be comfortable with reviewing financial statements in spreadsheet format. Still, they can become confused and overwhelmed by to the nomenclature used in policy descriptions and the sheer number of disparate coverage details. The salesman must somehow distill the information and present it in a format that is easily comprehended by the policy holder.
When businesses merge or are purchased, insurance policies often overlap in coverage. Thus, the combination of two different business entities typically results in duplicate insurance coverage that is not easy to spot. Conversely, the acquiring business owner may think that his or her present coverage is sufficient for the acquired business when in reality it is not.
Accordingly, need exists for an improved and more comprehensive means of analyzing multiple insurance policies and summarizing the coverage in sufficient detail that a layperson can comprehend. Further, a need exists for an automated means of policy analysis to reduce the time required to analyze multiple insurance policies and present multiple coverage scenarios and recommendations. The present invention meets these needs as well as others, which will become readily apparent upon reading and comprehending the following disclosure.